FGCU striving for name recognition

"We’ve been telling all the media, ‘Please don’t refer to us as FGC. We’re FGCU,’” Ken Kavanagh, the school's athletic director says.

DAVID HACKETT

Here's one thing Florida Gulf Coast Athletic Director Ken Kavanagh does not want to see when the Eagles play Florida in Friday night's Sweet 16 round of the NCAA men's basketball tournament:

The acronym "FGC" on a TV scoreboard.

"We've been telling all the media, 'Please don't refer to us as FGC. We're FGCU,'" Kavanagh said. "When I came here four years ago, one of my goals was to build our brand as FGCU. I want us to be as known by those four letters as UCLA is."

Such name recognition is a lot closer after what FGCU has accomplished in the past week. In a phone interview from Dallas, Kavanagh called the national spotlight that has shined on the Eagles "transformational for our entire university."

Is FGCU capable of another upset, this time against the powerful Gators?

"I'm not making any predictions," said Kavanagh, 52, who came to FGCU from Bradley University in Illinois. "We can beat them. We are here to play our best."

Kavanagh also has an eye to the future, including doing all he can to retain second-year coach Andy Enfield, who is almost certain to be courted by prominent basketball programs.

"I don't know," he said about whether FGCU can keep Enfield. "We certainly hope to. Thankfully, no one has contacted him yet."

The Eagles' run in the tournament -- becoming the first No. 15 seed to advance to the Sweet 16 -- will generate more resources for the program. While some programs and coaches have shoe and apparel contracts worth millions of dollars, the Eagles are the only team left in the tournament that has to pay for its own basketball shoes.

"We have one of those buy-one, get-one-free deals," he said of FGCU's shoe contract. "I think we'll have some more opportunities going forward."